S.V. Redkin – The Great Conductor (страница 4)
“Hello, Grandma,” Christine said, stopping work on her reports.
“Hi, hon,” Veronica said cheerfully. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
“No, it’s fine. What’s up?”
“Nothing much. Just wanted to make sure that you’re coming to lunch tomorrow.”
That sentence reminded Christine of the time when she enrolled at the University of Baltimore to pursue a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. At the age of seventeen, she was the youngest student in her class. Veronica would call her every day to check on her, worried about Christine’s ability to take care of herself. This continued until her graduation from the police academy. By then, Christine had learned to survive on her own, but she would still allow herself to be persuaded into having home-cooked meals from time to time.
Christine’s parents had provided her with enough support not to worry about her finances, and they also left her a rowhouse so she could live on her own. However, she had decided not to use the trust fund for anything other than education, unless absolutely necessary. So, she did some waitressing when she could to make sure she had just enough money to cover her basic expenses before getting her badge.
Christine smiled. “Sure, Grandma. I’ll be there. Do you want me to bring anything?”
“A bottle of wine would be nice, I suppose, but only if it’s not too much trouble for you.”
“It’s not. I’ll bring something nice.”
“Oh, good.”
There was a familiar pause in the conversation—Veronica was forming her next “sensitive” question.
“Yes?” Christine said, not wanting to have a long conversation at work.
“Your grandfather and I think that . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Well, there is a nice young man—”
“Grandma!”
“No, listen. I’m just saying that . . . you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but our friends’ son—”
“Please, don’t tell me that you’re talking about your neighbors and their son.”
Veronica and Sam Heart were unfortunate to have the Ellisons as neighbors, the most pompous old couple Christine had ever known, and their forty-year-old son, Matthew, who thought of himself as the center of the entire universe and behaved accordingly. “Obnoxious jerk” were the two words that were synonymous with Matthew Ellison in Christine’s dictionary.
“Oh no,” Veronica said. “I’m talking about Victor O’Brian.”
Christine could hardly remember who that was. A few images came to mind of a handsome man who was working for his father and was always on the phone at the one or two family occasions where they had happened to be in the same room.
“Do you remember him, sweetie?” Veronica asked.
“I kind of do, but I don’t—”
“Listen, before you say no, please hear me out . . .”
Christine rolled her eyes, fully aware that Veronica could not see her, but she could not help it.
“He works for his father. You may not remember that—he’s in real estate and he travels all over the country selling apartments and houses to rich people. He’s quite successful, you know.”
“So what’s wrong with him?”
“How do you mean?”
“He’s successful and handsome, but . . . he’s single. Right?”
“Yes.”
“So, what is wrong with him? Why is he still single?”
Veronica laughed. “Oh, I see what you’re doing there.”
“What am I doing?”
“Oh, don’t play innocent with me, young lady.” Veronica tried to sound stern. “You’re getting back at us, aren’t you? For what we told you. Right?”
Christine was smiling, but she wanted to continue this game to make sure her grandmother realized what they had been doing to her. “Could you remind me? What was it that you told me about me being single?”
“Oh, stop it! You know it was different back when we—oh, heck, even back when your parents, God bless their souls—were young. People would get . . . what’s the expression they use nowadays?
“But now?”
“Okay, now is different. There. Happy?”
Veronica could never win any debates with Christine—a fact that both of them were very well aware of.
“Quite. So . . . what about Victor? Is he looking for a life partner?” Christine asked.
Veronica laughed. “Your detective skills are extraordinary, but . . . it was his parents who are worried about him and they . . . well, they just suggested that—”
“Is that a blind date proposition?”
“It won’t be blind, will it? You know each other.”
“Sort of. I’ve seen him twice in my life. Don’t even remember what he looks like, really. He could be fat and sporting a ZZ Top beard, for all I know.”
“ZZ what?” Veronica asked.
“The band? Haven’t you heard of them? They’re pretty old. I’m actually surprised that I just used that reference.”
“Oh.” It sounded as if everything Christine just said went over Veronica’s head. “In any case, please, think about it. It could be good for you—”
“—to meet someone.”
“All right, Grandma. I’ll think about it.” Christine gave up.
“That’s all I’m asking, sweetie.” Veronica’s voice brightened considerably. “I’ll let you go now. You’re probably terribly busy.”
“Mission accomplished, right?”
“Excuse me?”
Christine shook her head, smiling. “I love you, Grandma. I’ll bring that wine. See you tomorrow.”
“Love you, too, hon.”
Christine put down her phone and was about to resume her work on the report, but then she changed her mind and decided to check the system to see if there had been any accidents involving cars similar to the one mentioned in her parents’ case. The car in question was a black 1999 Ford Super Duty, based on the testimony of some witnesses. She had been doing this every week whenever she had some free time.
Chapter 4
“Is dinner ready yet?” Lydia’s shrieking voice seemed to reverberate off the walls in the living room, amplifying its volume and sending it to every corner of their rowhouse. It always reminded Sebastian of his late grandfather Nathan Hasselbach, Lydia’s father, who was one mean old man and could not tolerate anything that was not to his liking. Sebastian remembered him yelling for his beer from the living room, just like Lydia, and his mother was the one to fetch it from the fridge—Nathan only drank it cold; otherwise, you were in trouble.
“Soon, Mother,” Sebastian replied calmly from the kitchen, where he was checking on a whole chicken in the oven. It would be another twenty minutes until the skin of the once-living hen, which had only been fed natural grains and probably had a nice cage-free life before it was slaughtered for the pleasure of people who cared about what they put in their mouths, would turn a succulent light brown color.
Sebastian’s father used to be responsible for all the grocery shopping and always bought good quality products. He subscribed to the “you are what you eat” philosophy. Lydia would often ridicule his approach, calling it a “nonsensical waste of money.” However, after noticing the positive effects on her skin, which would often manifest as an itchy rash when she ate certain ingredients, she gradually began to believe in the approach. She vehemently denied any suggestion from Stephen that her condition was psychosomatic or stress-related, strongly believing that her parents’ lack of understanding of proper nutrition was the real cause. To some extent, this was probably true, as Nathan, aside from the temperature of his beer, did not give a shit about what he ate as long as it had meat in it.
Lydia’s mother, Caitlin, was not in a position to vote on the matter within the family hierarchy. Nathan was the dominant figure that everyone had to reckon with, but Lydia was her father’s daughter and, as stubborn as a mule, she imposed the new eating habits on her father as well.
Wearing an apron, Sebastian sliced a few organic potatoes very thinly, covered them with salt, pepper, and ghee, and added them to the chicken in the oven.
“Hurry up, will you? I’m starving,” came another announcement. “Why can’t you be like Martha?”
Sebastian nodded in agreement—it was Martha’s day off and he was on cooking duty—and continued preparing a green salad with cheese, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds, dressed with organic pumpkin seed oil. As he worked on the salad, he thought about his music composition, which needed some fine-tuning before he could show it to Lydia.